


Right Where You Should Be

by linguamortua



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: First Meetings, M/M, Meet-Cute, Oh No He's Hot, Tour Bus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 12:07:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20741951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linguamortua/pseuds/linguamortua
Summary: Baptiste’s summer job as a tour guide is going pretty well... until he loses a tourist.





	Right Where You Should Be

**Author's Note:**

> [Based on the true news story of a female tourist in Iceland who got lost--kind of.](https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-ideas/weird-and-wacky/people-are-discovering-this-hilarious-story-of-a-missing-tourist-in-iceland/news-story/d2b8b42bd29463c12b183a69df82e1c1)
> 
> This is for [Suz](https://twitter.com/tendermiasma), of course.

Baptiste was definitely getting fired. He was going to be fired, and he was going to be broke, and he was going to have to drop out of med school and live in a dumpster and survive on ramen. This was a life-ruining accident.

He had _lost a tourist_.

People who lost tourists late at night in questionable areas of the Caribbean probably weren’t allowed to be doctors. If you lost a tourist, you might be the kind of doctor who amputated the wrong leg or told someone they had cancer when they didn’t. Losing a tourist displayed bad judgement.

Baptiste had always thought he had quite good judgement, but as he stood at the front of the tour bus trying to unobtrusively count his passengers for the fifth time, he was really questioning his skills in that area. The number, once again, was forty-one. Forty-one hapless white people, when he should have had forty-_two_.

He cleared his throat loudly. Everyone looked at him, expectantly waiting.

‘Folks,’ he managed to say. ‘We’re just experiencing a small, uh, logistical issue. Please stay in your seats while I go and solve it.’ He smiled winningly. He knew his smile was winning. The more he smiled, the better people tipped him. The only thing that reliably increased his tip jar takings more than his smile was wearing sleeveless t-shirts.

His tourists - forty-one out of forty-two of them - smiled back. Baptiste made a hasty exit down the steps of the coach, then flew across the car park to the tour company office. Mako was lurking behind his desk as always, picking his teeth with a giant finger and scrolling through his computer.

‘Hypothetically,’ Baptiste began, ‘if I couldn’t find one of the tourists…’ 

Mako lifted his head and fixed Baptiste with a cold stare. ‘Hypothetically,’ he said, his voice an avalanche rumble, ‘you would find them, or I would feed you to the sharks.’

‘Right,’ Baptiste said, ‘that would be what I would do, if there was a problem of that kind.’

‘Right,’ Mako said, and went back to his accounting, his face thunderous. 

Baptiste reflected on his boss as he left the small office and walked back across the car park. It was true that Mako had always been grumpy. However, matters had been made worse lately by an unfortunate incident with one of the other tour guides. A scrawny Australian had signed up for a year-long contract driving a coach, and had somehow ended up in the world’s least likely romance with Mako. Everything had crashed and burned, and consequently the Australian had crashed and burned one of the tour buses. How he had driven it off a cliff without killing himself Baptiste didn’t know, nor did he understand where the guy had found explosives. Anyway, Mako was down a weird boyfriend and a tour bus, and things hadn’t been _great_ in the office since.

Baptiste wouldn’t have dated a guy who called himself Junkrat and always smelled like gunpowder. But then, even though Junkrat had been an arsonist and a weirdo, he had also never lost a tourist.

‘Focus, Jean-Baptiste,’ he told himself. He was clearly distracting himself from the uncomfortable truth. He was going to have to start a search party for the missing tourist. This strategy was not without its problems. It was possible that he would send out a search party of more tourists and lose them, too. On the other hand, Mako would feed him to the sharks anyway, so he might as well try.

He climbed back aboard the bus.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he said, as charmingly as he knew how. ‘It looks like one of our guests hasn’t rejoined the bus. If you’re travelling with friends and family, please make sure everyone is with you.’ He paused and let everyone count their children and spouses. A murmur of curiosity was running through the coach. ‘Okay, everyone got their people?’

There was a ragged chorus of agreements. 

‘So, uh,’ Baptiste began. ‘Does anyone remember anyone who was here and now… isn’t… here?’

There was silence for a while. Everyone gazed at Baptiste, expecting him to somehow produce an answer.

‘Oh,’ said a middle-aged woman suddenly, her face lighting up. ‘The man in the windbreaker.’

‘The windbreaker?’ Baptiste prompted.

‘Oooh, yes, this sort of pale lavender colour. I remember because it was unusual. A lavender windbreaker and dark blue pants.’ She paused. ‘Tall, a bit older than me. He was quiet. We came over on the plane with him, do you remember?’ She turned and nudged her husband, who shrugged.

‘Sure. Older guy, kept to himself. Grey hair. I don’t know if he was _tall_.’

‘All right,’ said Baptiste, feeling very slightly more optimistic. ‘Everyone, we’re looking for a possibly tall, probably middle-aged man in a lavender windbreaker and blue pants. Anyone who can search should get off the bus now and wait for instructions. Everybody else, stay seating and _please don’t leave the bus_.’

The tourists began standing and grabbing their coats and backpacks, awash with scandalised excitement. Baptiste tucked himself into the little alcove where his driver, Lúcio, had his feet up on the wheel and was listening to his tunes. He tapped Lúcio on the shoulder, and Lúcio pulled his headphones down.

‘Hey man? Did you find the guy?’

‘No,’ said Baptiste glumly. ‘I’m making the non-lost tourists search for the lost tourists.’

Lúcio considered this. Baptiste could hear the tinny sound of his music through the enormous cans hooked around his neck. 

‘That’s cool,’ he said eventually. ‘Need help?’

‘Can you stay here and make sure nobody else gets lost?’

‘Can do, brother.’

Baptiste hopped off the coach. There was still plenty of light, but dusk would be settling in sometime in the next hour. He wanted this to go quickly, for that reason and for so many other reasons, including but not limited to his potential future medical career. He started corralling tourists into groups of three or four.

There were some complaints, but mostly everyone seemed weirdly excited. For a moment Baptiste felt hurt that they hadn’t displayed the same excitement as he led them through the chain of small and picturesque towns along the coast.

In the coach’s storage compartment were a couple of extra maps and flashlights. He handed them out, and then had everyone gather round.

‘He can’t have gone far, so we’ll start here and work outwards in a circle. If you can’t see the groups on either side of you any more, stop and work back towards the coach. When it starts getting dark, come back here.’ He checked his watch. ‘We’ve got an hour, everyone. Let’s go!’

To his surprise, everyone set off with obvious optimism that Baptiste couldn’t share. Logically his missing tourist couldn’t be too far away. They’d been here less than an hour, and everyone had definitely been safely aboard the coach when they left their last stop for the day. And why would anyone decide to sneak away from the final stop before the tourists all got ferried back to their hotels?

Flanked by two tourists, Baptiste gripped his flashlight and started walking back along the road they’d come down on the coach. The two tourists, sporty brothers in their early thirties, chatted quietly in German and scanned the roadsides with pleasing efficiency. Baptiste clutched his map like a lifeline. Losing himself would be the crowning misery of the day. A tour guide getting lost while looking for a lost tourist would probably make the local news.

Baptiste had family who read the local news. His medical instructors read the local news. 

No more than five minutes out, Baptiste heard the slapping sound of footsteps on tarmac. Behind him, someone breathlessly called out.

‘Wait, please!’

Baptiste turned to see a man running up behind him. He vaguely remembered the man; a sombre, single gentleman with a scholar’s air. He was wearing a hideous lime green sports sweater, zipped all the way up. His sweatpants were tucked into his socks, for reasons that Baptiste couldn’t possibly fathom. Truly, he thought, this was the darkest day.

‘Did you find him?’ Baptiste asked immediately.

‘Find who, please?’

‘The missing tourist? The one we’re all out here looking for?’

‘Oh! No, nobody but myself.’

He joined their little procession, and they kept walking down the road. The scholarly man, who might have been Swedish or something, sang quietly to himself. As he strode along, easily keeping pace with Baptiste and the athletic Germans, he looked up at the sky. 

‘He’s probably not flying,’ Baptiste said after a while. The scholar looked at him with pleased surprise, as if he’d forgotten Baptiste was there but was somehow unusually happy to see him anyway.

‘Most probably not,’ he agreed. He smiled at Baptiste. ‘But, you know, it’s my job to watch the sky.’

‘What do you?’ Baptiste asked.

‘Astrophysics!’ The man flung his arms wide. ‘The study of space and celestial bodies.’ The way he said _celestial bodies_ made Baptiste feel a bit funny. ‘What do you know about black holes?’

‘They’re… out there?’ Baptiste said hesitantly. ‘And you, uh, shouldn’t fly a spaceship into them. And something about, like, space time.’

The man smiled. ‘Excellent observations,’ he said. He was absolutely not being sarcastic. Nobody who tucked their sweatpants into their socks was capable of sarcasm, anyway. You didn’t have to be an astrophysicist to know that.

It turned out that the scholar didn’t need sarcasm. He had weapons-grade sincerity, and an ability to make black holes sound fascinating. As they walked, with dusk shading the world around them in greys and blues, the scholar expounded on how the universe works.

‘My mind is blown,’ said Baptiste, more than once. 

‘Good! Good! You should retain the capacity for wonder, young man.’

‘My name’s Baptiste,’ said Baptiste, packing away _young man_ so that he could pull it out later and try to figure out why that was kinda doing it for him.

‘Siebren de--whoops!’ The scholar had been looking back up at the stars which were just starting to twinkle out, and he had walked off the side of the road into a drain. Baptiste grabbed for him right as Siebren grabbed back, and they found themselves in an awkward embrace in the gutter.

‘Sorry,’ said Baptiste, disentangling himself and thanking several deities that it was getting too dark for his blushing to show. From up close, the man smelled like lightly spicy cologne. And underneath his dorky sweater, he had some muscles going on. 

‘Not at all,’ said Siebren, brushing plant matter off his sweatpants. ‘I’m ashamed to say that this happens to me often.’

‘Because you’re always stargazing, I’m guessing.’

‘Indeed! Why, just earlier I had a little accident with a slippery rock and a river.’

‘Are you hurt?’ Baptiste felt yet another sense of dread; tourists were supposed to be returned to their hotels uninjured.

‘Oh no, not at all,’ the man said cheerfully. ‘Only I got very wet and had to change. And all I had was this terrible sweater, which I believe belongs to a colleague.’ He patted his rucksack, which was quite full.

‘It’s,’ said Baptiste, searching for the right word, ‘very cheerful.’

‘It’s not exactly my style,’ laughed Siebren. He craned one arm backwards and fished under the top of his rucksack, drawing out a long sleeve. ‘But my windbreaker is wet through.’

Baptiste looked at the sleeve, and then up ahead at the Germans. And then back at the sleeve, and at Siebren, and then he stopped walking. The sleeve was lavender.

Siebren had stopped too, and was giving him a quizzical look.

‘Uh,’ Baptiste said.

‘Yes?’

‘Did you, um. Where and when exactly did you change?’

Siebren gave a startled laugh. ‘What a question to ask a stranger! But I’ll tell you, because I’m not shy. We stopped at the coach park, and everyone got out for the bathrooms, and a large, angry man let me change in an empty office. And then I came out and got a bit turned around.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I’m ashamed to say I was reviewing some notes I made, and went the wrong way. And when I found the coach again, we were all getting ready to search for your tourist!’

Baptiste made a strangled sound. It was so loud that the Germans heard it and retraced their steps along the road. 

‘Your jacket is lavender,’ he said, nonsensically.

‘But this is blue?’ 

‘It’s purple, actually.’

‘Well, I am a little colourblind, they say. But only a little!’

With a groan, Baptiste buried his face in his hands.

‘I think you’re my lost tourist,’ he said weakly. 

Presumably some time passed, during which Baptiste and his Germans and Siebren walked back to the coach. Baptiste had no memory of it; he walked in something like a fugue state. Perhaps he hadn’t lost a tourist, but he was definitely losing his goddamn mind. He was sure, later on, that he’d said the phrase ‘the jacket was lavender’ at least once. 

At the coach were gathered most of his tourists. One or two more groups were trickling in, all obediently returning as it got dark.

‘Please stand _here_,’ Baptiste said firmly, taking hold of Siebren’s weirdly strong arms and gently positioning him by the bus. ‘Like, don’t move from here, at all.’ He turned and whistled to get everyone’s attention, then whipped off a headcount.

‘Forty-two,’ he said, dizzy with relief. They all filed onto the coach. Siebren stood by the coach, obediently not moving.

‘You seem very stressed,’ he said to Baptiste solicitously. He reached out and patted Baptiste on the shoulder. ‘But everything turned out just fine!’

He leaned in a little as he said it. It was probably meant to be reassuring. Only, Baptiste had had a very long day, and Siebren was really attractive despite the awful clothes. So it was understandable that Baptiste’s muscle memory kicked in. He leaned in too, and kissed Siebren.

The kiss went on for _quite_ a lot longer than it really should have. Siebren’s hands somehow ended up on the small of Baptiste’s back, and once again Baptiste found himself helplessly clinging to Siebren’s biceps.

‘Really fine,’ Siebren said afterwards, a little hoarsely.

‘I’m glad we found you,’ Baptiste said. His confidence was buoyed by how affected Siebren looked. ‘How about you give me your phone number so I don’t lose you again?’

‘Well, I don’t have a phone that works here,’ Siebren said slowly. ‘But I’m at the Seafront Delight hotel. And it would be nice to have someone to show me around town.’

'Maybe you could navigate yourself to the Oceania bar tomorrow night at seven - or should I come and pick you up so you don't get lost?'

Siebren smiled. ‘I’ll be there,’ he said.


End file.
